To complete the University's Writing Requirements for an undergraduate degree, a student must satisfy a Tier II Writing Major requirement after having completed the Tier I First-Year Writing (ATL) course. Astronomy and Astrophysics majors will satisfy this requirement by completing the following cluster:
The junior-year course will concentrate on library research, written reports, and oral presentations. The senior thesis will require some laboratory and observational research on the part of the student which will normally take two semesters of enrollment and effort. The completed thesis will be graded not only on the basis of its content and accomplishment, but also for style and grammar. It is expected that there will be several iterations of the submitted material with feedback from the instructor about the content and the writing. The writing styles called for are appropriate to the discipline of Astronomy and represent the writing expected of professionals in the field.